Watching a friend fulfill his dream as an author makes me extremely proud! Great storyteller!

I’m half-way through it. It’s great: I feel like I was in there with you. I’ll put a review on GoodReads when I’m done.

I saw that you signed up as a Legal Observer. I’ll bring my copy if we end up at the same event; it would be an honor to have a signed copy.

Take care,

James

There's lots of books out there about incarceration. 
 
If you're looking for a book that documents the evils of the prison-industrial complex and sets forth a a manifesto for change, this book isn't it. There's George Jackson's book for that. 
 
If you're looking for a book that exposes the mass-incarceration epidemic, the racism that fuels it, and the harsh effects it has on communities, this book isn't it. There's Michelle Alexander's book for that. 
 
THIS book is something different and provides something that's missing from the body of incarceration literature: a first-hand account of the day-to-day life of an inmate in a Tampa jail, told in the real voice of someone who served time there. This book tells you how many Ramen-noodle packets you can get for a coffee packet, what petty indignities are suffered daily at the hands of guards and staff, what kinds of dreams inmates have at night, the ingenious uses and re-uses of the few items one can obtain at the commissary, the way that jail affects the families of the people incarcerated, what kinds of people you meet when serving time...things you don't find in the more scholarly books about mass-incarceration. The bookshelf of any student of the mass-incarceration is incomplete without this book and the perspective that it brings. 
 
That's not to say that the book doesn't cover the more philosophical angles. It does, but it does so in a very elegant way, between the lines. What comes through is a conviction that jail could be something more than it is. It could be a place where people use their time to grow as humans and receive some of the education that they missed along the way instead of a warehouse for human beings who are stripped of their dignity one layer at a time, then released back into the world. You really should read it. It's a one-of-a-kind book.